This terrible news was broken to Evelyn by Mr. Elthorne, and so great was the shock, that it was feared at first her health would give way under it. But it was not so. Evelyn Manwaring had learned fortitude in the school of adversity, and her loving heart had early received the teaching of the old Rector, that she had a Father in Heaven, who loved her with more than an earthly father’s love. And amidst her natural grief she had much to comfort her. Her high spirit, chastened but not subdued by sorrow, led her to glory in her eldest brother’s heroic death; and when, in the course of a post or two, she received letters not a few from his brother officers and from privates in his regiment, all testifying to the love and honour in which he was held, she was led to feel that, after all, it was, perchance, better as it was, and she was able to exclaim--“_Father, not my will, but Thine be done._” As to her younger brother, she came to regard him as a martyr to his own nobleness of spirit, and she never doubted that he was happier where he was. Evelyn, you see, had not learned the doctrine of the Communion of the Saints in vain. Nevertheless, she kept her room for a week after the receipt of the fatal news, tended always by Lucy Elthorne, and visited daily by the Rector. Then she nerved herself to come down, and set about those needful preparations which had to be made for her departure from her home; for, as the reader is already aware, the Holmcastle estate was entailed upon her Cousin Tresham. Nor, indeed, was that gentleman disposed to forego his legal claims a moment longer than he could help. Evelyn had been about again for a few days only, when a hack chaise drove up to the door of the Manor, and from it descended Mr. Tresham Potts _in propriâ personâ_, who, depositing a bulky portmanteau in the hall, much to Pinfold’s indignation, sent in his card, and demanded an immediate interview with his cousin. Evelyn nerved herself to receive this unwelcome and untimely visitor, who, after a somewhat brusque salutation, began thus:--“I’ve come, cousin, because, as I suppose you know--not that women ever _do_ understand matters of business--this tumble-down old shop and all that belongs to it is now Mine; and as I intend to rub it up a little before I bring Mrs. Tresham and my gals, I thought I’d best be on the spot to look arter the alterations. I hear from Merivale that you are left precious well off, but I don’t want to hurry you to move, and so I hope you’ll stay and be my housekeeper for the next three weeks or so.”